I don't think we can make the Alien Alloys responsible for everything; they'd become a "kitchen sink" tech, and that's not right. I do not recall the Alloys to have any particular qualities beyond their durability, flexibility and conductivity. Honestly, I'd prefer a separate tech, even if it was empty.

true. well, we could always change the names and fluff texts, while the structure of the tree I started to sketch wouldn't change.

Hmm, this could work. the problem is that it would need coding, because either Alien Alloys are what you get from the UFO or they aren't. Unless someone like Falko has another ingenious idea how to go about it. We could of course force the player to make Alien Alloys from Alien Debris before they can be used for construction, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not.

hmmm... if we still wanted to do it, we could leave "Alien Alloys" as the stuff that gets recovered, but you have to turn it into "Usable Alien Alloys" before using it

Hmm, this could work. the problem is that it would need coding, because either Alien Alloys are what you get from the UFO or they aren't. Unless someone like Falko has another ingenious idea how to go about it. We could of course force the player to make Alien Alloys from Alien Debris before they can be used for construction, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not.

hmmm... if we still wanted to do it, we could leave "Alien Alloys" as the stuff that gets recovered, but you have to turn it into "Usable Alien Alloys" before using it

thats the way i would do itdisable the production of alien alloychange alloy as manufacture requirement tolight alloys

2 alien alloy->1 light alloy

manufacturable after alien alloy

used for light weapons(rifle/pistol)

resistance alloys

1 elerium + 10 alien alloy->4 resistance alloy

researchable after light alloy and one plasma weapon/requiremnt for personal armour

Edit:ufopedia ufo navigation: "The system is based on optical processors arranged in network fashion. The control interface is relatively simple - the navigator controls the direction of gravity waves generated by the power source to move the craft in any direction."so replace aien control crystal with alien optical processors controlled with mind commands

I know some people will argue this is not plenty of sense, as we cannot know in advance such an information, but this could be intermediate between nothing and a complete tech tree, and this could add some strategic dimension.